KOCHI: Instead of trying his luck buying lottery tickets, he broke into a shop selling them to win the big prize. However, fortune did not favour the thief, and a police team picked him up. Babu, aka Ananthan Babu, 56, a native of Pala, allegedly stole 2,200 lottery tickets from a shop in front of the taluk hospital in Kothamangalam last November, the police said. He decamped at night with lottery tickets slated to be drawn over the subsequent weeks.
Following a complaint, the Kothamangalam police alerted all lottery agents about the theft and directed them to inform the police about the person who would approach them with the series of ticket missing from the shop. In the meantime, Babu arrived at a lottery shop in Pala as the tickets he had stolen won prizes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000. The shop owner, who was aware of the alert, soon passed on the information to the police.
Soon, a police team arrived there and took Babu into custody. The police said he used to buy lottery tickets but did not win any prize. “Hence, he decided to steal tickets in the hope of winning prizes from these tickets. But only minor prizes were drawn for these tickets,” said an officer with the investigation team. An investigation is on to ascertain whether more persons were involved in the theft, said the officer. A team led by Inspector Basil Thomas made the arrest.